I'll Fail You Time and Again
by drumblonde
Summary: Kurt does community service at Dalton Academy for Boys for his senior graduation requirements, where he meets Blaine, who is a not-so-good influence.


A/N: Okay, so I gave in to the tumblr Badboy!Blaine craze after Curt Mega tweeted that picture of the boys standing in front of a sign that said "Dalton" and they looked all tough. This is just my version of what I would see is Blaine was a badboy, and I'm sure it's similar to others out there, but hey, these are my words and it's my story.

Rated M for language and homophobic insults.

So enjoy and review, because I'd love to know what you think! :)

* * *

><p>Kurt hated community service. Like, he really hated it. He didn't understand why he had to do an ungodly amount of hours in order to fulfill the requirements to graduate from high school. He here he was, a senior, with only two hours completed out of the thirty he needed. To him, community service meant doing backbreaking work, like yard work or picking up litter on the streets or painting a house (god forbid <em>building<em> a house). He always politely declined and put off the days when he had to do the work, because he always thought that he would have better things to do.

Unfortunately, time was running out, and deadlines were fast approaching. Which was why he was in Ms. Pillsbury's office as she did a search on the computer for work that he could do without actually doing much at all.

"Well, Kurt, it seems like there aren't many options for you in the kind of work you want to do." She listed off the jobs, which got weirder and weirder as she worked her way down until he stopped her.

"What was that first one again?" he asked.

"Oh, well, um, it says here that it's at the Dalton Academy for Boys, and all you would have to do is filing work and help out with grading papers for some of the teachers."

He thought it over. "I think I'll do that one. It sounds easy enough."

So that was how he found himself in front of the gates to Dalton Academy after school the next day. They had different hours, and Dalton started school later than McKinley did, so they were dismissed later as well. It looked like an old mansion that was refurbished for a school, which wouldn't be surprising if that was actually the story.

Kurt rang the buzzer and gave his name and reason for being there, and the gate opened up to let him in. His eyes flicked across the grounds, taking in the immaculate care to the flower beds and the lawn. He had already guessed that Dalton was some sort of private school, but he had underestimated just how rich the kids must be to attend here, if the types of cars parked in the lot were anything to go by.

The office secretary gave him a badge to pin on his shirt, but instead he stick in on the strap of his bag. There was absolutely no way he was going to put any holes in his brand new shirt. She gave him a slip of paper with the room number he was to report to, and he left the office, feeling somewhat wary. He hadn't expected to have to go through a metal detector just to get into the school, but he supposed that it was just something a bigger city school required. Lima was a much smaller place, so there wasn't as much chance to have those sorts of things brought into McKinley.

He walked up to the door of the classroom he was supposed to help out in, and opened the door to find the teacher. What he was not prepared for was the sight of the boys lounging around the classroom, with an obvious contempt for what the teacher was even saying. Most of them were dressed in some shade of black, and were throwing around balled up scraps of paper at each other, with the occasional pencil flying past someone's face, too close to call an accident.

What the _hell_ did he get himself into?

The teacher was up front, writing something on the whiteboard and giving a lecture, but it seemed like nobody was paying attention. He was engrossed in whatever he was teaching, so he didn't notice Kurt's arrival.

However, a boy in the back of the classroom noticed Kurt, and let out a low whistle at the sight of him. He sat on one of the desks, leaned up against the wall, with his hands rested behind his back. He was dressed in dark jeans, a tight fitting white v-neck shirt, and a dark brown leather jacket, and his dark curly hair was mussed up, somehow in a good way. Kurt turned to sneer at him, except he froze when he looked at his face and saw that he was looking at Kurt, but definitely _not_ at Kurt's face.

Damn it. That boy just had to be the most gorgeous boy he had ever seen. And a complete jerk.

"Hey babe," the boy called out. "You can take a closer look at this later, if you want. And I know you want to."

"Mr. Anderson," the teacher spun around to admonish him. "I will not have you talking like that in my classroom. I shouldn't have to remind you." He finally noticed Kurt standing in the doorway, still frozen in place at the boy's forwardness. "And you must be Kurt Hummel. I'm Mr. Mortell. There are some papers on that desk over there that you can file into those folders." He gestured to a desk in the back where a stack of papers lay. And that desk happened to be right next to the Lewd One (that was what Kurt had begun to call him in his mind).

Good god.

Kurt sighed inaudibly and made his way over to the desk and sat down. He grabbed the top paper and looked for the folder with the corresponding name, but didn't have to look for too long, because Lewd One him handed him the correct folder. Kurt glanced up and took it from him. "Thanks," he muttered.

The boy winked. "You're welcome, babe." Kurt rolled his eyes and turned back to what he was doing. He looked over the paper—curiosity got the better of him and he wanted to see how smart these kids were—and was a bit surprised.

"Huh," he said aloud. The boy looked over at him again, eyes running up and down his frame. "Rethinking my offer, gorgeous?"

Kurt stared back at him coldly. "No. I'm just impressed that this paper has the correct answers, despite the fact that absolutely nobody pays any attention in this classroom."

The boy leaned in closer to Kurt. "Well I suppose you'll have a lot to learn about me," he said darkly, with a twinkle in his eyes. Kurt looked back at the paper and at the name. Blaine Anderson. "Well, Blaine. If you're going to learn anything about me, you're going to have to know that that crap doesn't work on me at all." He went back to filing the papers and ignored Blaine the rest of the hour. But he could feel Blaine's eyes boring into his backside as he left the room right before the bell rang.

He made his way to his car in the parking lot, and was had opened his door when he heard a voice behind him. "_Damn_. The view is just as good from behind." He whirled behind him to find Blaine standing right in front of him, thisfuckingclose. "_What_ are you doing?" Kurt exclaimed. Blaine had his hands placed on either side of Kurt's head on the car door.

Blaine leaned closer so that he was almost pressed up against his body and whispered right into Kurt's ear, tickling the flesh and sending goose bumps all over his body and a shiver through to the tips of his fingers. "Getting to know you, like you asked."

Kurt closed his eyes. No one had ever talked to him like that, much less pursued him in such an obvious way. But no. This was all wrong. Blaine was bad news. He didn't care how attractive he was or god, how sexy his voice sounded as he whispered in Kurt's ear, or how amazing he smelt with his expensive cologne layered over another smell Kurt couldn't quite place but had certain undertones of some sort of chemical. He didn't want this. He couldn't do this. Not now.

Kurt brought his hands up and pushed on Blaine's chest, forcing him back and climbed into his car, shutting the door behind him. "Nice try," he said and started the engine, pulling out of the spot and driving out of the parking lot.

The rest of the week was somewhat awkward for Kurt, since he had to use the same desk to file the papers for the teacher, and Blaine obviously wasn't going to sit in another seat. He had backed off somewhat, but Kurt knew that he still made comments behind his back from the way Blaine's classmates would randomly erupt into laughter as soon as Blaine muttered something when Kurt would stand up or sit down or really do anything.

Every single little movement, Blaine seemed to scrutinize at such an intensity, Kurt could feel Blaine's leering from across the room. It was getting old, however flattered and interested Kurt was at first.

Another week passed like the first, and then Kurt was moved to a different classroom to tutor in French.

Unfortunately, Blaine was also in that class, since Dalton changed classes at the end of the quarter, which had been the previous week. And unlike history, Blaine was pretty awful at French.

(The only thing he really knew how to say was "Tu voules coucher avec moi?" or "ça te plaît?" while pointing at himself and other lewd things, which made Kurt secretly bestow the nickname once again in his mind. The teacher had pretty much given up on Blaine, but she hoped that Kurt would stick around so that Blaine wouldn't fail that class. Kurt grudgingly accepted the tutoring position, telling himself that he was only going to help him out and nothing more.)

However, the time in class wasn't enough to teach Blaine what he needed to know. He really was atrocious at the language.

So that was how Kurt ended up exchanging phone numbers with him so that they could set up study sessions outside of school.

And that was how on a Saturday afternoon, Blaine had sent a text telling Kurt to meet him at the Dalton pool so they could study afterwards.

Kurt was pretty confused at first. Why, of all places, a pool? He spent the entire drive over to the school pondering why on earth Blaine had asked to meet him there.

Whatever. He walked into the front of the building where the counter was, and looked around for Blaine. Hmm… No sight of him.

The girl at the front desk looked up at Kurt from reading her magazine. "Hi, can I help you?" she said brightly.

He shifted his eyes around, unsure that Blaine would be somewhere like there. "Um, yeah. I'm looking for Blaine? I'm tutoring him in French and he told me to meet him here."

She narrowed her eyes, but the look on her face went away. "Yeah, he's just finishing up with the class. He'll be done in about ten minutes. Why don't you go wait in the stands?" She pointed to the doors over to the side that led to the bleachers.

Bleachers. Lovely.

He found a clean enough spot and sat down, placing his bag school bag on his lap. He frowned. Blaine was still nowhere to be seen. Kurt was still on the fence about Blaine. Yes, he was at Dalton for a reason (of which Kurt has yet to find out), and Dalton was a reform school, Kurt found out (he had already made quite a scene in Ms. Pillsbury's office when he pieced it together after the second day when a fight broke out in the hall and almost everyone around tried to participate—except for Blaine, who stood in the corner, watching casually). However attracted Kurt was to Blaine—there was no denying it, the boy was completely gorgeous and sexy and a huge (albeit, unexpected) turn-on to Kurt—the friendship or relationship or whatever the hell it was, was completely inappropriate.

Blaine was still the same as ever, but since the incident in the parking lot, he stayed out of Kurt's personal space a bit more, and Kurt was willing to at least talk to him if he was going to try that hard to respect Kurt's space. Kurt knew that if his dad found out about Blaine, or that Kurt was spending time outside of school with someone the likes of Blaine, he would be grounded until he was thirty, and then only allowed to leave the house to go to the grocery store or to take Burt places or something. And Kurt did not want to risk that.

His thoughts were interrupted by a splash in the pool, where someone had jumped in and begun swimming a few laps after the kids had left. He couldn't tell who it was, or what he looked like since his face was obviously submerged and goggles covered his eyes, but he was a really good swimmer. Kurt didn't know much about sports, but he did watch the Olympics (winter for the ice skating and summer for the gymnastics) and had inevitably gotten caught up in the Michael Phelps craze, so he paid a little bit more attention to the sport since then. It also didn't help that swimmers had amazing bodies.

The boy in the pool was pretty fast for what looked like a warm up or cool down, and his lines were nearly perfect, not to mention the way he effortlessly flipped in the water and pushed off the wall, streamlined and propelled almost to the center of the pool before having to use his arms again.

Next, he changed things up by doing different strokes (if Kurt remembered correctly, it was called an individual medley), and increased his effort. And yeah, he was really good at the other strokes, too.

When he was done with that, he stopped over at the edge of the pool and took a drink of water from the bottle that lay where his other things were. Kurt tore his eyes away and glanced around the pool again for Blaine. There was still no sight of him. Maybe he was in the locker room?

He looked up again, and this time, the boy from the pool was walking over to where Kurt sat in his spot, leaving a wet trail behind him. And okay, Kurt was right about swimmers. They had nice bodies. The boy was lean, but very toned in a subtle way that wasn't too much, and Kurt had to stop himself from gaping at him, which was hard to do because the v on his hips and the light patch of dark hair from his navel trailed down into a pair of black jammers so tight that they left no room to the imagination. Kurt blushed a little and tore his gaze away and to his face, because no matter who it was, he shouldn't have been looking there. His dark hair was plastered to his head, and on his face was the biggest smirk that Kurt had ever seen. He leaned against the railing, grinning up at Kurt, dripping wet.

"Like what you see, babe?"

Of course it would be him.

Kurt rolled his eyes and stood up, pulling his bag onto his shoulder. "Cut it out and get ready. I have to get home soon, so you're cutting into your tutoring time the longer you stand there," he said icily.

Blaine pouted and shook his head like a dog, sending droplets of pool water everywhere, and some landing on Kurt, who gave him (what he hoped) the bitchiest glare for getting his clothes wet. Blaine laughed. "You didn't come here just to see me?" He put his face back into that ridiculous pout again, which earned him another glare from Kurt.

"Just change your clothes or something so we can go."

Blaine grumbled something under his breath, but he turned around and walked into the locker room, swinging his arms across his chest to stretch them out.

Kurt sat back down in his spot. He cursed Blaine for being so attractive, because he _really_ didn't want to deal with that attitude that got in the way. He hoped maybe Blaine would act differently outside of school than he did around his classmates.

He waited for a few more minutes before going back out to the front to meet Blaine. When he finally came through the door of the locker room with his leather jacket slung over one shoulder and a small bag in his other hand, Kurt turned to go through the front doors and made his way to his car. Blaine followed him from a distance, taking his time and staring at Kurt's ass in the jeans he wore (okay, he wore them on purpose, but nobody needed to know that).

Kurt was already in his car, and opened his window to tell Blaine where they were going. Blaine just stood there staring at Kurt without saying a word but with that smirk still on his face.

"What?" Kurt snapped.

Blaine shrugged. "You don't want to ride with me?"

Kurt frowned. "Uh, no. I like the way I drive, thank you very much. And I don't want to get into a car accident, thank you very much."

Blaine laughed. "Who said anything about a car?" and pointed to a motorcycle in the spot a few lines over. There were two helmets resting on the seat.

Kurt widened his eyes. "Hell no. No, no, no, no. Absolutely not."

Blaine threw up his hands. "Fine, then. I'll meet you there." He stalked over to his bike, jammed the helmet onto his head, and tore out of the parking lot quickly while Kurt just watched in fascination.

They met at a small coffee shop in Westerville, since Kurt still didn't want to be seen with Blaine anywhere near Lima. Blaine was already there picking at a piece of biscotti when Kurt pulled up. Kurt stood in line to order his coffee and sat down when he got it and pulled out his French dictionary, signaling to Blaine that he needed to get his textbook out and his notebook to write in.

Surprisingly, they eased into a quiet studying, much unlike the environment at Dalton. Kurt helped Blaine conjugate verbs and practice different rules of grammar before quizzing him on vocabulary. He noticed that Blaine focused a lot more on the work when it was just them two, and kept the comments to himself since he was actually studying.

Kurt broke the silence after a while, taking a sip of his half full cup of lukewarm coffee. "You know, I never pegged you as a swimmer."

Blaine looked up and shrugged. "It keeps me out of trouble, and it's something to do."

Kurt quirked an eyebrow. "You like to swim, then?"

Blaine nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess so. I get paid for teaching the little kids, and I get to practice for when it's not the season. It keeps me in shape."

"Well, you're pretty good. At least from what I can tell," said Kurt quickly. "Do you do anything else, you know, to stay out of trouble?"

Blaine looked down and mumbled. "What was that?" Kurt asked. "I can't understa –"

"I like to sing sometimes," Blaine said louder.

At that, Kurt was a little shocked. Like the swimming thing, Kurt never really pegged Blaine to be the singing type. Well, he didn't really peg him as a fan for much of anything really because of the way he acted. "Really?"

Blaine wouldn't look him in the eye. "Uh, yeah. We have a sort of club at school that gets together sometimes. If everyone behaves, that is."

"I'm in my school's glee club, you know," said Kurt. Blaine finally looked up at Kurt. "Oh."

Kurt laughed. "What? Did you think I was going to make fun of you for being in that sort of club?"

Blaine shrugged again. "I don't know. Just, don't mention it again. _I _still can't believe that I'm in that group."

Kurt left it alone, and they went back to practicing French until another hour passed. They were about to leave, but then Blaine grabbed Kurt's arm before he got into his car. "Wait," he said.

Kurt stopped. "What?"

"I uh, want to show you something."

"Oh. Where?"

"You have to ride with me if you want to see it."

Kurt looked at Blaine, and over at the motorcycle sitting in the space. "On that?"

"How else am I supposed to give you a ride? And there's no way I'm riding in your car. I don't do cars. Come on," he said.

Kurt struggled to come up with a good reason why he shouldn't, but he couldn't. He put his bag in his car and turned back to Blaine reluctantly. "I'm ready to sabotage my hair so I can see this place of yours," he said somewhat dramatically. Blaine's mouth quirked up in a smile, and he handed Kurt one of the helmets, climbing onto the bike. He patted the seat behind him. "Come on up, babe."

Kurt rolled his eyes. So he _hadn't_ dropped the name, just when he thought that the day would be somewhat nice. He swung his leg over the back and sat down behind Blaine, gripping his shoulders.

Blaine turned around. "Do you _want_ to fall off?" Kurt shook his head. "Then you're going to have to hold on a lot tighter." He reached behind him and grabbed Kurt's hands, wrapping them around his own waist. "Don't worry. It's a short ride, and I'm not going to give you a disease, if that's what you're afraid of."

He started the engine and took off. Kurt immediately pressed closer to Blaine in fear of falling off. That bastard. He did this on purpose. Kurt didn't care though, because Blaine smelled nice, even if he still smelled a little bit like chlorine.

After a short ride, Blaine pulled up to a park and stopped the bike. "Kurt, I know you like me for my body, but you can let go now." Kurt snapped back to his senses and noticed that his arms were still wrapped tightly around Blaine's waist.

"Oh, sorry," he said, blushing. He let go quickly and sort of half-slid off the seat and stumbled awkwardly to the side. Unfortunately, Blaine noticed the maneuver and gave a sharp laugh with that smirk on his face again.

"You know, you really should stop making that face," said Kurt. "Do you _want_ your face to be frozen like that forever?"

Blaine gave another bark of a laugh. "Oh come on. You really believe in that stupid story that your mom told you?"

Kurt visibly clenched his jaw and went pale.

"What?" asked Blaine.

"I – uh. My mom is dead," said Kurt finally. He looked down at his feet.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know." Kurt looked back up, and saw that Blaine's face had changed from joking to somewhat serious.

"Don't worry about it. Just – what were you going to show me?"

Blaine's face settled into its usual expression of amused indifference, and motioned for Kurt to follow him. "Over here."

They walked for a way on the grass and finally came to an old playground, complete with a swing set and a large slide. Blaine made his way over to the slide and sat down underneath it, sheltered from the cloudy sky and looked expectantly at Kurt. "Well?"

Kurt sighed and sat down next to Blaine. "The ground, really?"

Blaine scowled. "Get over it, babe."

"I'd like it if you stopped calling me that," snapped Kurt.

"Why? It's true. You're hot."

"So? That doesn't give you the right to hit on me every ten seconds!"

"Come on. You like it. And you like me, too. Otherwise you wouldn't have come here."

"No! I came here because I have to tutor you for French."

"Yeah, and you already did that. You chose to come _here_ with me. That says something."

Kurt stopped short. "That still doesn't give you an excuse to be so disgusting and lewd about me. Why can't you have any manners?"

"Kurt. Just stop. I like you, and you like me. Simple as that." Something had changed in Blaine's tone, and he was looking at Kurt in a way that he wasn't before. He leaned a little closer to Kurt.

"Like I told you before, there's a lot you don't know about me." Blaine was achingly close, and at that moment, Kurt didn't care how much he resented the stupid way Blaine called him babe. All that he knew was that he was on the verge of doing something he would possibly regret, but when he leaned in closer and filled in the gap, all of those thoughts fled his mind as their lips connected.

He moved his mouth slowly against Blaine's, the soft press of the touch deepening as Blaine moved closer and brought a hand up to grab at the back of Kurt's head. He opened his mouth a little and allowed Blaine's tongue to dip in slightly, just a taste, but once Blaine had a taste, something took over and he pressed harder against Kurt's mouth with a new urgency. His hands moved slowly over Kurt's sides and came to rest at his hips, where he gripped him tightly and clutched him closer.

They stayed like that for a while, until something kicked into Kurt's mind and he tore away, taking a ragged breath. That was it. They had crossed something and there was no turning back. But there were two paths that he could take.

Blaine leaned in again, but Kurt pushed him away. "Stop. This is wrong. I can't do this."

"What?" Blaine was lost.

"I just can't. I don't know you. You're bad for me, Blaine. You did something terrible to have to go to Dalton. I can't be with someone like you." Kurt stood up and smoothed the front of his jeans, even though they weren't wrinkled. "Just take me back to my car please."

Hurt and anger flashed in Blaine's eyes before control came back and indifference clouded over. "Fine," he said bitterly, and stood up.

-O-

Kurt watched Blaine ride away almost instantly after he dropped Kurt off back at the café and at his car. He didn't even pause long enough to make sure Kurt got to his car; he just left without looking back.

Somehow the sight of that almost made Kurt regret his decision.

-O-

The next week at Dalton was awkward to say the least. Kurt had been transferred to a different classroom to help out in. The teacher said it was because Blaine said he had a better understanding of the material and didn't want a tutor's help anymore, so Kurt let it go and devoted himself to just serving the rest of his community service time in the most uninterrupted way possible. He mostly came and went quietly, like he always had, but had less of a reason to linger in the hallways.

One day, he had excused himself to go to the restroom and wasn't paying attention to where he was going and ran headfirst into a solid, unyielding mass.

"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing, fairy?" said the low, gruff voice of the _building_ of a person he had just collided with.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard what I said, fag." He sneered at Kurt and advanced towards him, cornering him against the lockers. A fist was terrifyingly close to Kurt's face and he closed his eyes in anticipation, waiting for it to be over.

"Hey!" shouted a voice down the hall. The footsteps echoed as they got closer until Blaine came running down the hall and straight into the hulking mass. "You stay away from him, Derek," he yelled.

Derek took a step back and rounded on Blaine. "What makes you think I'm gonna listen to you? You're just as fruity as he is!"

That was it. Blaine threw a punch to his face and the crunch of a nose being broken resounded loudly as blood dripped down his face. He didn't hang back, however, and grabbed Derek's shoulders and kneed him in the groin, sending him into a writhing ball on the floor. "You lay a finger on him, and you're gonna answer to me. Got it?"

He grabbed Kurt's wrist and walked out of the hallway quickly and into a bathroom, leaving Derek wallowing in his pain.

"You listen to me, Kurt. You aren't safe here. I already told you that. You _have_ to be careful." Blaine spoke in a low, urgent voice, as if he didn't want to be overheard.

"Why? Why did you do that for me?" asked Kurt, dumbfounded. He thought Blaine had made it clear that he didn't want any sort of communication between them after that day in the park.

"Because there are some fucked up people in this world, do you understand?" Kurt dared himself to look into Blaine's eyes, and found something he could only define as fear in the hazel depths. "You need to get out of here for the day, Kurt. Just leave this place, okay?"

Kurt could only nod before Blaine was pushing him out the door and down a different hallway and through the front doors. He was still somewhat shaking as he got into his car and began to drive away. He didn't think that he would have to deal with that crap at a reform school, much less an all boys reform school. Weren't the people in there supposed to be turning their lives around?

-O-

The next day, Kurt braced himself for the worst. He expected Derek and his cronies (if he had any) to come and hunt him down in a deserted hallway, or to be taunted by the other boys for showing any weakness in that place. He wasn't expecting to find Blaine waiting for him by the entrance, with a relieved look on his face.

"What are you doing here?" asked Kurt quietly.

The smirk flashed back onto Blaine's face as he answered him. "Any excuse to see you in those jeans is worth it, babe."

Kurt glared at him. "Stop it."

Blaine held up his hands in surrender. "Geez, sorry. Look, I'm here because the office said that someone needed to watch out for you after what happened yesterday. You don't know anyone else here besides me."

"You didn't get in trouble for that?"

"Hell no!" Blaine laughed. "Derek was harassing you. You're a guest of this hell-hole. I was kinda protecting you." He mumbled that last part, but Kurt clearly heard it. The way he said it kind of stuck out at Kurt. Maybe he _was_ genuine about when Blaine said he liked him…

"Oh." Kurt was silent after that, and they walked quietly down the hall. Blaine spoke up. "Oh, and you know what this means, right?"

Kurt frowned and shook his head. "No, I'm afraid I don't…"

The smirk was back. Blaine leaned close to Kurt and whispered low in his ear. "It means that you are my tutor once more." He pulled back and gave Kurt a quick wink and shoved his hands in his pockets and sauntered into the classroom. Kurt stood behind for a moment, rolling his eyes and followed Blaine into the classroom, but with a small smile on his face. Okay, he still didn't like the way that Blaine hadn't given up the flirting, but by then, Kurt had missed it and found it somewhat endearing to him.

-O-

Class was actually fun, Blaine's attitude about learning was similar to when they had the study session outside of school. He focused more on ignoring the other students, and was engaged in doing his best in learning the language. The teacher nodded with approval at Kurt for being able to get Blaine to study so hard, and Kurt shrugged. He really didn't have much to do with it. It was more Blaine than anyone else, but of course Blaine wasn't going to admit to that.

Kurt wasn't yet ready to tutor Blaine outside of class, however, since he didn't quite trust him after what happened. They still had each other's phone numbers, but Blaine hadn't made any attempts to contact him because they already got to talk during class.

It was all over too soon when Kurt didn't show up a week later.

-O-

Of course Blaine only thought the worst. What if those assholes had gotten a hold of Kurt in the parking lot? What if they followed him somewhere and Kurt was lying in a bloody mess, helpless in a ditch? What if he was in the hospital? What if something happened to Kurt's dad at home? (Kurt had mentioned to Blaine about Burt's heart attack the year before)

He wasn't thinking as he ran out of the classroom before school was over and jumped on his bike, speeding towards Lima like every second counted.

(Okay, he wasn't going to admit to it because it would make him sound like a stalker, but he had followed Kurt home after the first day because he was simply curious. He hadn't done it since then, but now he was grateful that he did since he could get to the bottom of the mystery and see if he was alright.)

He finally stopped outside of the Hummel household and parked his bike next to the curb and ran up to the door, pounding on it relentlessly.

The door swung open to reveal a very unamused Burt Hummel with a deep frown on his face as he looked down at the boy in the leather jacket standing in the doorway with his fists clenched.

Burt crossed his arms and eyed Blaine suspiciously. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, is Kurt here? I really need to talk to him," said Blaine quickly. He noticed the disapproving look in Burt's face and looked down at his feet, uncurling his fists and resting his hands at his sides. He picked at the hem of his jacket.

"Kurt!" he called upstairs. "There's uh – someone here to see you."

Kurt came down the stairs and stopped in his place when he saw Blaine standing there, eyes wide open. Burt saw the look on his face and edged his way past Blaine through the front door. "Look, Kurt. I have to leave now for the garage." He turned to Blaine. "Can I trust you with my son in my house?"

Blaine looked a little shocked. "I – uh – what?"

"I said, can I trust you?" Burt found Blaine's eyes and looked into them. Blaine decided it would be a bad time to look away, so he somehow didn't break eye contact and managed to answer. "Yes, sir."

Burt nodded, but it didn't quite seem like he was convinced. He knew he could trust Kurt, however, and Finn was supposed to come back from Puck's house soon enough anyways. "I'll be back in a few hours, son," he said, and left the porch, climbing into his truck and driving away down the road.

Kurt hadn't moved a muscle. "What are you doing here?" he squeaked out.

"Can I come in?" asked Blaine. He was still standing on the front step of the house and the door was still wide open. Kurt seemed to snap out of it and nodded. Blaine stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

"We need to talk," he said.

Kurt nodded again and motioned for Blaine to follow him into the kitchen. "Are you hungry?" he asked as he poured himself a glass of water. Blaine shook his head and Kurt sat down.

"So. What do you need to talk to me about?"

Blaine frowned at Kurt. "Are you serious? You don't know?"

Kurt narrowed his eyes at Blaine. "No? I'm actually kind of confused as to why you're here. Actually, how do you even know where I live?"

Blaine waved an impatient hand, dismissing the comment. "Not important. What I want to know is where you were today. You didn't even show up, and you never said anything."

"Blaine, I was going to call you or something –"

"Yeah, well you didn't."

"I'm sorry?"

"You should be! I was worried!"

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Why were you worried?"

Blaine gave a tiny, bitter laugh. "You think I don't have human feelings or something?"

Kurt shook his head. "No, that's not –"

"I thought something might have happened to you, okay? You never know, at Dalton. For all I knew, you could have been hurt, or worse. I panicked when you didn't walk into class today," he said softly.

Oh.

_Oh._

"Look, Blaine. I –"

"Stop, Kurt. I'm not finished." Blaine ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath before continuing. "What I'm going to tell you, I've never told anyone before. Especially nobody at Dalton, because nobody would understand."

Kurt gave a tiny nod, wondering what Blaine could be talking about.

"I'm not who you think I am, Kurt. I mean, I am, but you don't know why I am this way. This isn't really what I used to be like. I made myself into this" he gestured at himself, "because that's what I thought I had to do to protect myself. Before I got to Dalton, I was a good kid, so much like you, but I was taunted, I was tormented, and I was beaten at school because I'm gay. I'm sure you've had your fair share of bullying, but Kurt, I let it get to me. I let it control me until I decided to get back at them. I made my parents sign me up for Tae Kwon Do so I could defend myself. And the next time somebody tried to beat me up, I could actually fight back instead of just taking the punches over and over again.

"One day, I just cracked. I don't know what happened, but something came over me, this rage that had built up and I lost control and I lashed out worse than I had ever done before. I don't even remember what I did, but a teacher saw what I was doing and I got in trouble. My parents were shocked and embarrassed, and it was bad enough for them that their perfect little son was gay, but now fighting with everyone at school was the last straw for them.

"And they sent me here. They have money, obviously, and so they thought that a place like this would straighten me out, in both ways. To be honest, I'm glad I'm here." He sighed. "I don't know who started the rumor, but before I actually started going here, people got a bad impression about me, and they don't mess with me. They think I did something _really_ bad to get sent here, when all I did was get into fights defending myself. All I have to do now is be intimidating enough so that people will continue to back off, and I guess I kind of got in the habit of that to the point that I don't know how to interact normally with people. And I miss being able to talk to people and have them treat me like equals instead of some screw up kid who belongs in prison.

"I really don't belong at Dalton, but I feel safe there, because people leave me alone. And I was so scared about you, Kurt, because people don't know you, and you obviously don't blend in there, so they were obviously going to target you like they did last week. Like I said, I panicked because I didn't want the same thing to happen to you as it did to me, because you shouldn't have to run away from those things."

Kurt was silent for a moment, then he spoke up, placing a hand over Blaine's on the table. "Thank you for telling me that. But what I was trying to say was that I have all of my community service hours, and I was going to tell you after school. I didn't think that you would react like this."

Something changed in Blaine's look. "Why would you say that?"

Kurt shrugged. "I don't know."

"Kurt, if you haven't guessed by now, I actually do care about you," said Blaine quietly. "I don't want to be this person anymore. I want to be someone that you can like back, and not just because I'm forcing myself on you. I haven't let myself get attached to people since the stuff went down at my old school, and for some reason, I just want to be with you."

"Really?" Kurt wasn't sure he had heard Blaine correctly. Every time he allowed himself to hope for something, a shot at love, someone to make him a little less lonely, something always happened to make everything fall apart. It was sort of a new territory for him.

"Really." Blaine looked away nervously before meeting Kurt's eyes again. "I – I need to know what you're feeling right now, Kurt. Or else I can just leave and pretend like this never happened and we don't have to talk anymore –"

"Blaine, stop it. You're rambling." Kurt found Blaine's hands again and took them in his own. "Now I can see that there is another person hiding inside of you, even though I suspected it all along. But I want to know that you're not going to turn around and go back to the way you've been for however long you've put on this act. I can't be with someone like that; my dad won't allow it and it obviously wouldn't be good for me either. _I'm_ not trying to change you, though. You need to know that. It's _you_ that needs to change yourself. Just like you did before. I can help you, but it's something that _you_ have to initiate, otherwise it's not going to work out." He smiled a little to reassure Blaine. "You were right though, about me in the park when you kissed me. I do like you, very much."

Blaine let out the breath he had been holding (wait, when did _that_ happen) and smiled back at Kurt, just taking in everything that he had come to appreciate about the snarky boy who had stood up to him. "Um, can I kiss you right now?" He placed a hand on Kurt's face, brushing a thumb lightly over his cheek. Kurt gave a tiny nod in agreement and Blaine leaned in. It was slow and sweet and everything that things _should_ have been from the start, but it didn't matter because Blaine was different since he first met Kurt, and that was all that counted.

They pulled away at the same time, and Blaine laughed a little bit. "I'll have you know that it was _you_ that kissed me the first time. I did nothing but sit there and you did the rest."

Kurt smacked his arm playfully. "I'll have you know that it was you that wolf-whistled at me the first day I started helping out."

"So? You didn't object." He paused, a little bit more serious as he spoke again. "I really want to make this work."

"I do, too." Kurt smiled back at Blaine, who gave a big smile in return, and that was all Kurt needed to be sure that maybe things really _could_ work out for once in his life.


End file.
